New French trains too wide for 1300 platforms

[whole diary]

[stuving]

According to Le Canard encha^, the new TERs (regional trains) being supplied by Alstom from this year are larger than those currently allowed to operate in many parts of France. As a result 1300 platforms will be trimmed back, over three years and at a cost of ^50 million. 

News reports such as those in Le Figaro or Le Point (I can't see any in English yet) gleefully make this out to be an engineering cock-up in either RFF or SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways). I suspect there's a bit more sense to it than that - for example, that this new gauge has been adopted to become standard, and this procurement and the infrastructure work have got out of sync. Still, it's good for a laugh anyway.

[JayMac]

Le Canard encha^. Est-ce comme Private Eye au Royaume-Uni? 

[stuving]

Le Canard encha^. Est-ce comme Private Eye au Royaume-Uni? 

Yes and no. It's very different in style and content, but fills much the same ecological niche. I think it has more leaks, like this one - not something the Eye is very strong on these days. For serious political scandals, it's been upstaged recently by Edwy Plenel's subscription web site Mediapart.

[stuving]

A few additional points:

• The trains concerned are 182 Alstom Regiolis and 159 Bombardier Regio 2N, due into service 2014-2016.
• There are 1300 platforms needing work (plus other lineside obstructions to move) out of 8700 in France.
• The cost is more than the ^50M originally reported. France 2 was quoting ^80M for only the 300 platforms done so far.
• The government has joined in, with the junior minister (Fr^ric Cuvillier) attributing the mistake to the way infrastructure management is split between RFF and SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways). Of course you would expect him to say that, as the government still plans to remerge them - as far as the European Commission will allow.
• You could just as well say it was due to not divideing the two enough - i.e. not splitting off SNCF infra and putting it into RFF, since that's where all the detailed local knowledge resides. The new plan will actually do that.
• Here is a report in English, from Reuters.
• The story has just reached BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Breakfast.

[Rhydgaled]

Haven't the press over here ever made a similar comment on the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)? Of course it isn't exactly an 'engineering cock-up' since the longer carriages might turn out to have their benifits, but I do think the infrastructure work to permit the longer carriages would have best been limited to lines which are being upgraded anyway (electrification and frieght guage enhancement). Instead the IEP includes guage clearance on most (but not quite all) of the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) and ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) INTERCITY networks, including diesel sections that will only infrequently be used by IEP (Penzance, Carmarthen, Aberdeen, Inverness) but will nevertheless represent a large proportion of the cost of modifying the infrustructure.

[rogerpatenall]

• The government has joined in, with the junior minister (Fr^ric Cuvillier) attributing the mistake to the way infrastructure management is split between RFF and SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways). Of course you would expect him to say that, as the government still plans to remerge them - as far as the European Commission will allow.

Hi Stuving - perhaps you are knowledgeable enough to tell me just how much RFF and SNCF are separated? Or is it just a cosmetic division of jobs in one organisation to satisfy the eu? Thanks

[IanL]

Now on the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) web pages

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27497727

[stuving]

It's roughly 2000 vehicles, but only 341 trains (Reuters' mistake). The Bombardier ones are double-deckers and can be up to 10 cars long, though most of the orders are for 3-6 cars. I found this on Bombardier's page for this order: "The train with an extra-wide carbody ...".

Haven't the press over here ever made a similar comment on the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)?

RFF's line is that this is all network upgrade and modernisation, but they admit to having been slow to spot how much needed doing and when.

Hi Stuving - perhaps you are knowledgeable enough to tell me just how much RFF and SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) are separated? Or is it just a cosmetic division of jobs in one organisation to satisfy the eu? Thanks

RFF has about 5000 staff, responsible for managing the infrastructure, doling out its maintenance budget, collecting access charges, etc. All engineering is done by SNCF infra, with (from memory) 51,000 staff. The problem seems to be that they are used to dealing with SNCF operations locally and regionally, but now all this goes via via RFF. This clumsy arrangement was widely blamed for the poor maintenance that led to the derailment at Br^tigny-sur-Orge last July. Similar issues have led to the introduction of NR^» (Network Rail - home page)/TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) alliances, of course.

The general French view is that the Commission is a nest of Thatcherite ultralibereaux forcing their free market system onto an unwilling and naturally socialist continent. Not only this (nominally socialist) government but also its (nominally center-right) precursor have been enviously eying the structure of DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about) in Germany and saying to themselves "how did the Germans get that past the Commission?". That's roughly what they are negotiating with the Commission at the moment.

[Brusselier]

Watching some of the video reports on French news site http://lci.tf1.fr they're also talking about realigning tracks in some locations (Lyon was mentioned) to permit two of these trains to pass on adjacent tracks.

[onthecushions]

Platforms are surely an Anglo-Saxon fetish. Most French trains I've sampled had steps down to track level, and they seemed easier for the passenger than ascending or descending from a Mark 3's doorway at Paddington.

Mind the gap,

OTC

[trainer]

Platforms are surely an Anglo-Saxon fetish. Most French trains I've sampled had steps down to track level, and they seemed easier for the passenger than ascending or descending from a Mark 3's doorway at Paddington.

Mind the gap,

OTC

I think you'll find that France (along with most western European countries) has built high platforms almost everywhere (I haven't been everywhere, hence the 'almost') in place of the low kerb-type that used to abound.  All modern stock seems to be accessible to wheel chairs, prams etc, straight off the platform.  We are a long way behind in this respect and the level of physical agility required to board and leave British trains is much higher than in mainland Europe.

[grahame]

The new undergrounds have sideswiped each other too ...

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/district-line-trains-smashed-into-one-another-on-notorious-section-of-track-9353270.html

District Line trains smashed into one another on 'notorious' section of track

[Surrey 455]

The new undergrounds have sideswiped each other too ...

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/district-line-trains-smashed-into-one-another-on-notorious-section-of-track-9353270.html

District Line trains smashed into one another on 'notorious' section of track

Perhaps that article should be listed in the "Annoying / amusing use of completely irrelevant stock photos to illustrate news articles" topic. The first picture shown is not one of the new S stock trains. Going through Wimbledon daily I can see that three types of train are currently being used on that stretch of the District line. The S stock which has only recently been introduced will replace the older of the three types. The picture shows the stock that is in between the oldest and youngest types.

[TonyK]

RFF are now blaming SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways), for not telling them there are two different specifications. Stations built within the last three decades are OK, the older regional ones are not. SNCF are blaming RFF for doing it wrong in the first place. S^gol^ne Royal, Environment Minister and former presidential squeeze, has expressed outrage. RFF have now reverted to the time-honoured get-out clause of "they needed widening anyway".

All in all, it seems they didn't get the "t^tes up", and it's all gone ".....er, wrong".

[stuving]

I still can't fathom who did what - no, I mean who didn't do what but ought to have. There's too much of reporters reporting other reporters' reports, official statements owing more to the arse-covering reflex than any wish to inform, and rentamouth ministers who ought to know better*. And it is hard to believe it was a single mistake in supplying one set of data that did it - all parties had enough information to know there was a gauging issue, including the suppliers.

Les Echos (a business paper) has a slightly more credible story, in which the original specification came from SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways), and went through several stages of review on its way back and forth between RFF and SNCF before being signed off. I am sure that the train-buying team in SNCF have always known that gauging has to be checked on every order, and they will have a lot of information on that of various ages and not all saying the same thing. What everyone agrees on is that the relations between RFF and SNCF, and between both and the regions that provide most of their subsidies, are lousy.

Some of this sounds rather familiar, doesn't it? Restructure a railway, bring in new "more business-orientated" teams to do things like procurement, replacing the people who knew the rest of the business. Set up distinct businesses to do infrastructure and trains, with arms-length dealings and technical reviews all over the place. (But note that in France the government has kept out of the rolling stock area - so in some ways less "nationalised", or at least less dirigiste, that the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).)

One other aspect that struck a chord with me was the design review process. In much of engineering (in its broadest sense), a design review is a meeting in which you go through a checklist asking "has xxx been considered?". I noticed some years ago that it was very rare for anyone to actually review a design (i.e. look at its details and check whether they were right) in the meeting, or even to provide evidence they had done so beforehand. You needed to have someone more senior than the whole team working on the project for that to happen - hence the value of the "red team". And if you don't do real reviews ... look what happens!

(*S^gol^ne Royal has rapidly got herself a reputation for this. One of her supporters in her presidential candidacy was Jean-Pierre Chev^nement, famously quoted as saying "A minister, it closes its mouth. And if it wants to open it, it resigns.")